Anthony Enriquez, 9, of Whittier, checks out a bedroom as his mom
Darla Goering, not pictured, gets an apartment tour by its owner
Virginia "Ginny" Ball, right, at the Corley Arms Apartments in
Whittier.

WHITTIER – Renting out an apartment just isn’t as easy and quick as it used to be for apartment owner Virginia “Ginny” Ball.

“I’m not renting them as quickly,” said Ball, whose Woodruff Properties owns 149 units in Whittier and Chula Vista. “It’s about a month to rent a unit. Usually, I would rent in about a week.”

It’s a common story among local landlords and apartment owners as a year-and-half-long recession drags on.

Their story reflects the nation’s, according to a report out last week.

The national apartment vacancy rate reached its highest level in more than 20 years in the second quarter – and it’s climbing – according to Reis Inc., a research firm.

The vacancy rate rose to 7.5 percent in the second quarter, the highest it’s been since 1987, according to Reis.

Rising job losses are behind all the “For Rent” signs sprinkling the front lawns of area apartment buildings, according to real estate experts, landlords and owners.

“The key challenge here that L.A. is facing is the state of the economy – unemployment,” said Dolores Conway, director of the Casden Real Estate Economics Forecast and a USC professor. “We’re still losing jobs.”

Employment – particularly among 18- to 24-year-olds – traditionally fuels demand for apartments. But that demand has become “soft,” Conway said.

Until employment picks up, which might not be until late this year or next, vacancies will continue to rise, she said.

Owners, landlords adjust

In the meantime, landlords, property managers and owners are adjusting to a new rental landscape – a renter’s market, but one where renters are uncertain about their own futures.

For owners, at the core of that adjustment is lowering rents.

Nationally, according to Reis, asking rent fell .7 percent from a year earlier to $1,040 a month, and .6 percent from the prior quarter. The first half of 2009 saw the largest declines in asking rent since Reis began tracking in 1999.

“Landlords have far less wiggle room to simply offer concessions … they now need to lower asking rents as well in a fierce battle for tenants,” Reis’ Director of Research Victor Calanog said in the report.

And that’s exactly what local landlords are doing.

“Landlords are having to make concessions to rent in a way they haven’t had to do in quite a while,” said Fin Beven, of Beven & Brock Property Management in Pasadena.

Before the downturn, Ron Rice, a landlord for a building in Monrovia, was renting a two-bedroom unit for $1,200 to $1,250. He’s cut it down to $1,100.

Others are reducing rents, while offering a month of free rent; cutting leases back to six months instead of a year; reducing security deposits; and negotiating more.

But getting renters with good credit – and a job – hasn’t always been easy.

That means units are sitting vacant much longer between tenants.

Ralueke Ufodike, a Temple City apartment manager, rented a 1,000-square-foot unit on Monday that had been vacant since March.

“It’s all decked up, and yet it sat for three months,” he said. “That’s a long time. That same unit, when it became vacant in 2007, took me about two weeks to rent. I’m serious.”

Tenants have reasons

But renters have their own problems and needs in an economy that is sliding.

Beven noted job losses and transfers at local financial service hubs like Countrywide Savings & Loan and the now defunct IndyMac had people leaving their rentals.

Others are among the rising jobless, who have moved in with friends and family. Some are moving out of apartments and into homes. And others are renting rooms from friends and family to help them pay their mortgages.

Sean Wu, a Temple City renter, is one of those who has stayed in his apartment. But it’s been long enough to see the effects of the economy.

“They’ve had that `For Rent’ sign out there for a while,” he said.

But he still had faith in renting.

“It gives you a lot of options,” he said.

But as his former neighbors and other local cash-strapped renters leave, landlords and owners are getting applications from an increasingly underqualified roster of would-be tenants.

Ball said she recently had to turn down an application for a one-bedroom unit – from a woman and family, including her daughter-in-law, her mother and her two grandsons.

One local owner said a manager at his building received 40 applications, most of which were from people who didn’t have jobs.

The same owner, who declined to give his name, said some tenants are finding better deals on homes.

But he had words of caution.

“I’m losing $800-a-month tenants to home-buying,” he said. “But they were barely making their rents. Those people are next year’s foreclosures.”

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